Shut Down The City Lights
by lennysheartlocket
Summary: Six memories of George O'Malley. One-shot.


**A/N: Everyone who knows me knows that George was my favorite character on Grey's. This is just a one-shot about six times other characters thought of him after his death. The title and the lyrics come from the song "Gone, Gone, Gone," by Phillip Phillips. **

**Disclaimer: If I owned Grey's Anatomy, I wouldn't be writing this in the first place, not only because the show would be mine but because George wouldn't be dead. I don't own the song either, so please, no one sue me.**

* * *

_When life leaves you high and dry  
__I'll be at your door tonight  
__If you need help, if you need help.  
__I'll shut down the city lights,  
__I'll lie, cheat, I'll beg and bribe  
__To make you well, to make you well._

_When enemies are at your door  
__I'll carry you away from war  
__If you need help, if you need help.  
__Your hope dangling by a string  
__I'll share in your suffering  
__To make you well, to make you well._

* * *

She's in a rush that morning, because her alarm clock didn't go off, and she burns breakfast the first time around, and she has to singlehandedly get a toddler ready for the day because Arizona was on-call the night before. "Just a second, Sofia!" She calls out to her daughter as she rushes out of her closet, hopping around on one foot as she tries to get her boots on. She sloppily pulls her hair out of her face, and peers into her jewelry box, searching for her wedding ring. She can't find it, and curses under her breath, realizing it's probably fallen through the crack. The jewelry box has two levels - there's the top part, with all the neat little compartments where she keeps the stuff she wears all the time. Then, if you pick the top part off, there's just a big space for her to keep little odds and ends, like broken bracelets or holiday themed earrings or other stuff she doesn't wear all the time. There's a small gap between the top and the bottom, and sometimes things fall in.

Callie takes out the top compartment and sticks her hand in, feeling around for her ring. She feels the cool, smooth texture of a wedding band on her palm and smiles to herself, grabbing it and yanking it up. But when she opens her hand she gasps, because this isn't the ring Arizona has given her. This, this is her _first_ wedding ring.

She still remembers the little details of that day, when she thinks hard enough. She remembers the cheesy chapel, the shiny jumpsuit of the Elvis impersonator who had married them. She remembers the look on her now ex-husband's face as he says 'I do'. She remembers his lips on hers, their hands intertwined and his wedding ring pressing into her palm as they kiss for the first time as husband and wife. It's a small stone, though she'd assured him she hadn't minded, and honestly she hadn't. For a while, this had been her prized possession. She wouldn't have traded it for all the diamonds in the world. Now that she thinks about it, she still wouldn't. It has even more meaning to her now. Now, this ring doesn't represent a hastily-decided future with George O'Malley. It represents everything he'd been.

She slips the ring into her pants pocket absentmindedly, pats the spot gently as she goes back to looking for her other ring. She thinks of George, the first day they'd met, after he'd fallen down the stairs. She smiles. That was the George she liked to remember.

* * *

He spends Thanksgiving from his hospital bed, with some of the residents to keep him company. Wilson, Edwards and Murphy bring food, and sit in a cluster around his bed, trying to keep him occupied. They laugh and talk, stuff their faces with buckets of chicken and cups of mashed potatoes. They may not be Grey's batch of interns, not even close, but they're not so bad. Honestly, Richard's starting to like them. They're a talented group.

"Tell us a story, Dr. Webber," Stephanie suggests, cutting into a piece of chicken like it's a delicate surgical procedure.

"What do you want to hear?" He asks, swallowing his bite of food. The girls look at each other, as if silently deciding what to ask for.

"Tell us about the attendings when they were interns," Jo finally says, and Leah and Stephanie nod in agreement, their mouths filled with cole slaw.

He laughs. "I suppose you want to hear about Grey, Yang and Karev, huh?" The residents nod eagerly. "Grey practically has surgery in her DNA. From the first day she's reminded me of her mother." He says. "Yang, well, she was always hardcore, always wanting to get in on the best surgeries, working long hours until I had to force her to go home. Karev was an underdog at first, you know how he is. But I think I always saw his potential. And he became a fine surgeon. They all became fine surgeons. Sometimes, I look at the three of them now, and I find it hard to believe that they used to be a batch of interns, kissing ass and bringing their attendings coffee and fighting with their friends for surgeries."

The women laugh, probably finding the thoughts of their bosses ever being at the bottom of the surgical food chain hilarious. "You said they had other friends," Leah says. "Can you tell us about them?"

Richard looks down, stabs a chicken leg with his fork, deep in thought. "There was Izzie Stevens," He began. "She was okay, always got a little too attached to her patients. She stole a man a heart once - that was a crazy story. Karev will probably tell you about her someday, when he's ready." He looks to Wilson now - he's not stupid, he knows the two of them are together - and then back down at his lap. "Then, there was George O'Malley."

The women chew, waiting for him to say more, but he doesn't. "Well? Tell us about George," Stephanie prompts.

Richard shakes his head. "O'Malley, he was...he was a good guy. Nice. Funny. Talented. I had a soft spot for him, and Bailey would never admit it, but I think she did too. Our old cardio surgeon Dr. Burke liked him a lot also." He thinks back to George's intern year, and laughs to himself. "You know, I made him my intern, The Chief's intern?"

The residents smile and laugh, and he does too. For a moment it's silent as they pick at their food, and he imagines what it would be like if George was here today. "If you had to pick one of us to be The Chief's intern," Leah pipes up, after a moment. "Which one would you pick?"

He surveys the three of them, each one looking at him like she thinks she's the favorite. "...Wilson," He concedes, causing Jo to gloat and Stephanie and Leah to brood. They burst into another chorus of giggles as he looks away, sighing to himself. He does like these girls. But there will only ever be one Chief's intern. In his heart, no one will ever be able to fill the void left by George O'Malley.

* * *

She's never been the soccer mom type, the kind of woman who drives a mini-van and makes cookies for the bake sales and doesn't have any career other than taking care of her kid. So today, Miranda Bailey cannot wait for that school bell to ring, because it's her turn to pick up Tuck, and right now she's wedged between two practical soccer mom definitions, who are - ironically - talking about their boys' latest game. One of them, who boasts that her son is the best goalie, looks way too young to have a kid Tuck's age, but maybe she only seems that way because she's dressed like a teenage girl. The other, a woman clad not in a North Face and skinny jeans but a stupid looking jogging outfit, must've been at this a long time because she has a bumper sticker on her van that says 'Mother of a University of Washington Student', but she hasn't lost any of her pep.

She has to resist letting out of a sigh of relief when she finally sees Tuck emerge from the doors, walks away from the two other moms to go meet her son. "Hi, Mom." He says, wrapping his arms around her legs.

She smiles and gives him a tight squeeze. She's extra glad to see him. "Ready to go home?"

Tuck nods, and the two of them walks towards her car together, hand in hand, right past the two soccer moms who haven't even noticed that she's left. She helps Tuck buckle his seatbelt, and her son looks at her, thoughtful, as she slips into the driver's seat. "Mom?" He asks.

"Yes?" She responds, looking in the mirror and not at her son's face as she pulls out of her parking spot. A Volvo stops abruptly behind her and so she quickly brakes. She recognizes the car as one that belongs to a gay couple with an adopted Chinese girl in Tuck's grade whose names she can't remember.

"Well, today in class, we were talking about names, and how we got ours." Tuck explains. "I know I'm named William after Grandpa, and my nickname is after Dad, but I don't know about my middle name. Where did George come from?"

Her grip on the steering wheel tightens, and she doesn't move even though the Volvo has since pulled forward and she's already half out of the parking spot. "George, well, George was..." She trails off, and Tuck is watching her, waiting for an answer. "Tuck, you know how I have interns that I teach at work?"

Her son nods. "Yeah, cause you're good at your job and more people should be good like you."

She forces herself to smile, and behind her someone honks their horn. "Well, George was one of my interns before you were born. And when I had you, George was there to help me because your father was...uh, a little busy, at the time."

"Oh," Tuck says, nodding. "Okay."

She starts to pull out of the parking spot now, trying to regain her composure. But Tuck has one more question. "So, I guess you really liked George a lot since you named me after him, huh?"

Miranda looks down at her hands on the wheel, and stays silent for a moment. She'd always been extremely proud of how far Grey and Karev had come. Yang was a great surgeon too, but she'd always been the independent one, never wanting any help. Stevens had been nothing but a pain in her neck. But O'Malley..."George was my favorite intern," She tells Tuck. And it's the truth.

* * *

It's been a long, boring shift, and she can feel her eyelids getting heavy as she does paperwork. She stifles a yawn and does a messy version of her signature. "Dr. Yang," Shane calls for her, and she looks up, wondering what he wants. She's really not in the mood for a booty call. "They need a cardio consult in The Pit. Are you free?"

She nods and drops her pen. "I'll be right there Ross, thank you." The resident nods and walks away. Cristina sighs and pulls back her hair, rubs her eyes in an attempt to keep herself awake and then walks the way he did.

Ross is filling out charts next to one of the beds, where a young, thirty-something year old man is laying. There's something about his eyes - or is it his face? - that looks familiar to her, like she's seen it on someone before. But she can't place it.

"This is Mr. Smith," Ross explains to her, gesturing to the man in the bed, who smiles at Cristina. Where has she seen that smile before? "He's been admitted in need of a heart transplant,"

"Please," The man says, extending his hand to her. "Call me George."

Her whole body suddenly goes cold. "George," She repeats, speaking a name that hasn't been uttered by her lips in a long time. Her arm feels heavier than it actually is as she reaches up to shake George Smith's hand.

It's not just the name that gets to her. As she looks him over again, she realizes that he physically reminds her of George O'Malley too. Those kind eyes, that remind her of a baby deer, innocent and wide. The shape of his face, the delicateness of his features. Even the shag of his hair, which reminds her of during intern year, when George had grown it out.

"Dr. Yang?" Ross says, and she snaps out of it, wonders how long he's been saying her name. "Are you okay?"

She forces herself to nod. "Yeah, uh...just give me a second, okay? I'll be right back." She starts to back out of the ER, and Shane watches her go, confused, so she fakes a smile before turning on her heel and looking away.

She walks out of the room so her patient doesn't have to see her like this, and tells herself that Cristina Yang does not cry. _Like George said, you're a robot. _She thinks to herself, but it only causes the first tear to slip from her eye.

* * *

He doesn't know how he gets roped into being the attending on call during the intern appy, but somehow he does. Originally, it'd been Arizona's job this year, but she has to scrub in on an emergency surgery, and all of a sudden he's being persuaded to help out with the appendectomy when he really wants to go with Robbins. The intern that she's picked is a nervous looking blonde girl, who physically shakes as she scrubs in. "Calm down," He snaps at her, because he's in a bad mood, and she only nods, mumbles "Yes, Dr. Karev," and shakes more.

The other interns all watch from the gallery, on the edge of their seats as their peer makes the first incision. He wonders if they're taking bets on if she succeeds or not. That's what everyone had done when he was an intern. When...He shakes his head. He doesn't want to think about that right now.

For a while, he thinks the intern just might - pull it off, he means. "Good," He half-heartedly praises. "Now you just have to - " He cuts himself off when the intern pulls on the purse strings, and they snap. There's a loud chorus of "oooh"s from the gallery. "Okay, she's bleeding out, what do you do?" The intern can only stare at him, looking terrified.

He can hear the laughter from the gallery, sees people dig into their pockets for their cash. Next to him, the intern shakes, too terrified to move. And suddenly, his own voice floods into his mind: _He's 007_. The first time anyone had spoken the nickname that would follow George to his grave.

Before, he might've done what Burke had done all those years ago - shove the intern out of the way, call her names, send her out of the room. But, when he looks at the trembling girl next to him, he sees George, back when they were interns, when he made the same mistake. "It's fine," He finds himself telling her, and she looks at him, wide-eyed, probably surprised that one of the attendings she's been told to fear is comforting her. "I'll fix it, you just watch so you don't make the same mistake next time."

Everyone in the gallery has stopped laughing, simply staring down into the OR in shock when they see that he isn't kicking her out. "Yes, Dr. Karev. Thank you sir." The intern says, stepping back so he can finish. She's no longer shaking. He just nods at her as he gets to work.

He's never been the religious type, the kind of guy who believes in God or eternal life or all that crap. But Alex can't help but wonder that if somehow, wherever he was, George O'Malley could see him now, he'd be proud of the man he'd become.

* * *

Zola likes to look through all of her old photos. The little girl is fascinated by the concept that her parents had a whole other life before they adopted her. She turns the pages of each album delicately, handling them with a care that most children her age would not. Sometimes, she sits with her, takes a stroll down memory lane with her daughter, laughs at how young everyone used to look, wipes tears from her eyes as she talks about Lexie and Mark, feels the flutter of butterflies in her stomach when she sees the old images of her and Derek.

Today, she is sitting on the couch, while Zola sits on the floor, a photo album open in her lap. Upstairs, Derek is probably putting Bailey to bed. She checks her phone, checking for an update on their latest portal vein test from Edwards, only to find no new messages. Zola's voice interrupts her thoughts. "Mommy?" She says, and Meredith looks up.

"Yes, Zo?" She responds, putting her cell phone back into the pocket of her jeans.

"Who are these people with you, Aunt Cristina and Uncle Alex?"

She feels something, almost like an ache in her chest, because she knows who Zola is talking about before she can even look at the photo. Meredith sinks down next to her daughter, takes the album from her hands and runs a finger down the old image. She doesn't remember who snapped the quick photo. They were only interns when it was taken.

Cristina's head is thrown back in laughter, her dark hair all over the place and her grin wide. Alex has an arm wrapped around Izzie's shoulder, his eyes fixated on her lovingly. She finds herself, smiling, a hand reaching up to her face, her body turned towards George, the subject of all of their amusement, as he tries to wipe up the juice boxes he spilled with bed pans. It's not a perfect image - they're moving around a little, causing their edges to be blurred, and none of them are looking at the camera, and she's practically _snorting_, for God's sake, but Meredith thinks it's the perfect photo of the five of them.

Zola is watching her, waiting for an answer to her question. "Well..." She begins. "That blonde woman? That's Izzie. She was our friend, but she moved away a long time ago. And that..." Meredith trails off, her finger pointing towards George, his face captured in the middle of an awkward grimace. It takes her a second to realize she's laughing.

Zola gives her a confused look. "Mommy? Are you okay?"

She continues to laugh, and wipes away the tears pooling in the corners of her eyes. "Oh, I'm sorry, sweetie. That's George. He was very funny."

Zola nods, accepting this answer. "And he was your friend too?"

Meredith nods. "Yeah. He was a good friend. Everyone liked him."

Zola studies the picture, her brow wrinkled in thought. "Do you think I would've liked him?" She asks.

Meredith pauses, and thinks about what it would be like if her kids had gotten a chance to meet George. She bets he would've been the fun uncle, who made her kids laugh and volunteered to babysit them. She smiles at the mental image, and then her lips brush against Zola's forehead. "Trust me," She says. "You would've loved him."

* * *

_I surrender honestly.  
__You've always done the same for me._

_So I would do it for you, for you.  
__Baby, I'm not moving on,  
__I love you long after you're gone.  
__For you, for you.  
__You will never sleep alone.  
__I love you long after you're gone  
__And long after you're gone, gone, gone._


End file.
